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Sunday, March 17, 2013

Facing serious charges of money laundering, the country’s top three private banks have been galvanised into action. They have appointed audit and law firms to probe the charges, suspended staff, and directed branch heads to report to administrative offices.

HDFC Bank, which is believed to have suspended 20 employees who were caught on camera by Cobrapost for allegedly offering to covert black money into white, has appointed Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India to carry out an independent forensic enquiry into the allegations and reported statements made by its staff on camera.

The private sector bank has also appointed Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A. Shroff & Co to examine any breach of the bank’s code of conduct and ethical standards by bank officials. Alongside, the bank said in a statement, an internal departmental probe has been launched to verify the video-taping of the bank officials.

HDFC Bank said it will carry out special audit of some of its branches where the reported video-taping was done.

A spokesperson for the country’s largest private sector lender ICICI Bank said 18 employees had been suspended pending inquiry into the suspected money laundering case. “We have constituted a high-level inquiry committee to investigate into the matter and submit its findings in two weeks,” the bank said in a statement. Axis Bank has advised 16 of its employees who were caught on tape to report to their administrative offices, pending enquiry.

“We are internally trying to check if the transactions claimed by the online Web site (Cobrapost.com) have actually taken place. A high-level committee has been constituted to monitor and supervise the entire investigation process on a daily basis,” said an Axis Bank official.beena.parmar@thehindu.co.in